A cause for ME found?

[David Martin]

Apparently there is a really strong correlation between a retrovirus and ME..


         Has science found the cause of ME? -
            Science, News - The Independent

Very exciting - maybe ME can be treated with retrovirals or even vaccinated against?

..d

[andygates]

If nothing else, lots of ME diagnosis is hazy - a physical test will really help with that.

[Flying_Monkey]

That doesn't surprise me - a retrovirus, or post-viral effects have always seemed the most likely cause to me. I expect that it will be discovered in the near future that are many other conditions that derive from similar origins.

[her_welshness]

My gosh, some of the comments underneath the article are terrible. For people to deny that ME exists is wholly wrong. One of my friends had it for 7 years. Therefore, his thirties was a write-off. Another friend at Uni got it at the end of term one and never came back. It's a terrible disease - I hope to God that medical research is getting somewhere.

[Flying_Monkey]

I know. I have had two good friends who have suffered very badly from it. The apparently proud and deliberate ignorance and casual cruelty of people never ceases to disappoint me.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

In the course of my work, I've seen people who I believe had it, and I've seen people who clearly had something wrong with them but I don't believe it was ME. I've seen people desperate to get better, and people who seemed to have no interest in getting better because they liked having things done for them. And I've seen people who seemed to find it easier to believe they had ME than that they had psychological problems.

I've no doubt that some people really do have it and I hope this discovery is helpful.

[pcolbeck]

I had a friend with ME. It was almost certainly a post viral thing as she got it after recovering from an illness caught on holiday. She went from a very independent woman with her own business (she was a driving instructor) who was full of energy and the life and soul of any social occasion to so low she couldn't get out of bed for weeks on end or out of the house for months. After fighting ME for several years she committed suicide and it wasn't a cry for help it was very deliberate and planned, she made sure she wouldn't be found until it was too late. Ten years on and I am still shocked but I understand that she simply felt that she couldn't continue in that state even though she had a loving partner that did all he could to help her. We all still miss her. ME is very real and very debilitating.